Indian football legend Tulsidas Balaram passes away aged 87
Kolkata, Feb 16: Asian Games gold medallist and Olympian Tulsidas Balaram, a part of Indian football's 'holy trinity' in the prosperous 1950s and 60s, passed away here on Thursday after a prolonged illness, sources close to his family said.
Balaram was 87 and a widower living in a flat on the banks of Hooghly river in Uttarpara.
The 1962 Asian Games champion was hospitalised on December 26 last year and was being treated for urinary infection and abdominal distension.
"His condition did not improve and he breathed his last around 2pm today," a source close to his family told PTI.
"We are grateful to the state government and the sports minister Aroop Biswas for taking good care of him during his last days," he added.
Born on October 4, 1936, to Tamil parents -- Muthamma and Tulsidas Kalidas -- in Ammuguda village in the garrison town of Secunderabad, Balaram scored 131 goals across seven seasons.
Balaram belonged to the golden generation of Indian football in the 1950s and 60s where he teamed up with legends such as Chuni Goswami and PK Banerjee, as they came to be known as 'holy trinity'.
An Arjuna awardee, Balaram's exploits at the 1960 Rome Olympics are well documented.
Placed in the 'group of death' with Hungary, France and Peru, India lost the opener to Hungary 1-2 but Balaram covered himself in glory by scoring a 79th-minute goal. He also scored against Peru in the Games.
India came close to upsetting France a few days later with Balaram again showing his class.
The Jakarta Asian Games gold, where India beat South Korea 2-1 in the final, was the country's second title triumph in football at the multi-discipline continental games, and the achievement hasn't been repeated since.
Besides his ability to score brilliant goals, Balaram was well-known for his amazing ball control, dribbling and passing abilities through a comparatively short but very successful career.
Balaram, who mostly played as a centre-forward or as a left-winger, called it a day in 1963 owing to poor health.
His career spanned eight years between 1955 and 1963, before being cut short by tuberculosis at the age of 27.
Having made his international debut against Yugoslavia at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, where India finished fourth, he went on to play 36 matches for the country while finding the net 10 times, including four in the Asian Games.
He has represented Bengal and Hyderabad in the Santosh Trophy and tasted success with both states.
After his retirement as an active footballer, Balaram coached the Calcutta Mayor's team in the Gothia Cup in Sweden. He had also served as a talent spotter of the All India Football Federation.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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